3 Replies Latest reply on Aug 22, 2013 6:12 PM by Jared Conway

Need advice regarding internal fan flow for axial fan

Syarif Yahya Aug 22, 2013 8:34 AM

Hello everyone,

I need some advise to make me clear about fan simulation. I am currently trying to simulate an axial fan, with dimension 40mm x 40 mm. However, from the forum, I found that I can simulate using the fan feature in flow simulation and also I can use rotating region that can specify the rotating speed.

Between these two, for the case of rotating region method, the rotating region volume or area has to be disable in component control. However, for the internal fan method, the rotating region volume must not be disable.

The question is, which of this method is better? secondly, if I used fan feature, is the blade need to be model precisely or I can just use a simple block with opening circle in the middle similar with the dimension of the fan curve data that I supply to the model? I found that the fan curve only need to know the inlet and out let flow,outer diameter and hub diameter, but not the fan blade dimension. Or do I still need to model the fan blade as for the rotating region method?

I am really appreciate if someone can clear my doubt.

Thank you

Re: Need advice regarding internal fan flow for axial fan

Brendan Labrecque Aug 22, 2013 10:06 AM (in response to Syarif Yahya)

Syarif,
For this use the fan feature, not the rotating method. The rotating feature is for engineers developing fans themselves. For what you need, a fan is simply a pressure rise, but is dependent on the backpressure (this is why we have fan curves)

Basically your fan could be a 40mm round extrude that is 10mm long, don't worry about the fan blade detail at all. When setting up the simulation, you would select the two side of the fan extrude that represent the entrance face and the exit face, that's it.

You may need to set up a custom fan curve though if it's not loaded in SolidWorks. This is easy to do, just Google "plot digitizer" to download software that will allow you to select points off the pdf spec sheet of the fan, and it will output the points into excel. Then you can cut and paste these excel values into SolidWorks.

Good Luck,
Brendan
Like Show 1 Likes(1)

Actions
- Re: Need advice regarding internal fan flow for axial fan
  
  Syarif Yahya Aug 22, 2013 10:08 AM (in response to Brendan Labrecque)
  
  Thanks for the reply Brendan. I am clear know.
  
  Cheers.
  
  Like Show 0 Likes(0)
  
  Actions
  - Re: Need advice regarding internal fan flow for axial fan
    
    Jared Conway Aug 22, 2013 6:12 PM (in response to Syarif Yahya)
    
    I'd recommend looking through the tutorials for flow. There is an example of each.
    
    Like Show 0 Likes(0)
    
    Actions

Go to original post